"Run DMC brought us out of that underground-only feel. They brought rap above ground and made it respectable as an art form to mainstream music."
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Rap quotes
Rap
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Rap quotes (page 22 of 92)
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"They thought we were just basically keeping ourselves underground on purpose. And it was just strange for people to approach music that way. And for rap, trying to get recognition, and be seen as a regular form of music like anything else. I mean, the Soul, R&B, Rock 'N Roll, they would dis the hell out of rap when it first came out."
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"We used to have MTV and all these ways we can show our videos, and it was these rap shows, and it was everything. And then it became not cool to be conscious; it became cool to just hang out. Escapism rap became the norm. And, when I say "escapism rap", I mean getting high, get your cars, get your money, get your jewelry, go to the club, have your women, and it just became all about escaping your reality and not making your reality better on a real tip; not just on the have fun tip."
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"Whatever happened in the neighborhood. That's what I was rapping about. And that sparked people's interest. And that's what kind of put me on that path."
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"We come from the days when rap used to agitate the mainstream. Now it's more buddy-buddy. That doesn't sit well with me. So what we need is [a bit more] street politics, bringing up issues, agitating you a little bit. And nothing can agitate you more now than a terrorist threat."
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"You have to come in on a professional level to make it, otherwise you just can't get into rap."
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"I'm at a point where I don't have to wait for the income from the record to survive, so I'm in a comfortable zone, but I'll make rap records as long as I feel I have something to rap about."
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"When I first got into the rap game, I had an early dream of unifying rappers."
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"Rap is rock 'n' roll. Rock is when you push the buttons in the system; when you say, I'm not going along with what you're saying. That's rock, whether it's done with guitars, or it's done with just beats."
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"I think that a rap aficionado, the hardcore rap fan, will always go away from pop, in the same way a hardcore jazz fan will never think Kenny G is really a jazz artist. You gotta kind of know there's always going to be that purist who's going to be like if it ain't beats and rhymes, if there ain't a DJ, then that ain't Hip Hop."
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"The trick with hip-hop-hip-hop is a sport. The only music that's really, really close to a sport. It starts off, "My DJ's better than yours. I can out-rap you, I can out-dance you, my graffiti piece is better than you." It's very competitive."
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"Everyone who raps isn't hip-hop. To be hip-hop, you've got to know the culture. You got to know the history."
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"Used to ride with him to Brooklyn, Lewis and Halsey, co chocolate thai, vernon style and burn it down"
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"The particular skill that allows you to talk your way out of a murder rap, or convince your professor to move you from the morning to the afternoon section, is what the psychologist Robert Sternberg calls "practical intelligence." To Sternberg, practical intelligence includes things like "knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for for maximum effect."
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"The thing with me is, I'm from a rap background so I'm not really a traditional singer in that sense."
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"You have to expect the raps when you have achieved popularity as a writer"
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"My character is meant to know nothing about rap, and not to like it very much, but I know about it, because my kids make me listen to it. There's some rap I do like very much. I like Eminem, Blackalicious."
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"If I should fall asleep and death takes me away, Don't be surprised son, I wasn't put here to stay."
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"It's ninety-six degrees in the shade... Before I catch blood on my blade."
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"Do some good to the ghetto, Mr. Kris Kringle. Come and stay awhile, kick it with God's Angels. Take and acknowledge my wisdom and understand That Santa Claus is a black man."
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